I really enjoyed writing my first blog post for this blog yesterday, and I was excited all day that I had actually written something! I was following through on my final resolution (see yesterday's post...Also, I have fingernails now. My mom recently told me that this is the first time since I was an infant that she had known me with fingernails.). Yesterday's blog was my first piece of writing since the dog attack, and it felt great to get some thoughts on "paper" and to remember, in many ways, why I wanted to teach writing in the first place. Yesterday was also, oddly, the first time I was looking forward to that awkward time before bed where I thought about a bunch of random things. I couldn't wait to see what i would think of so I could have something interesting to blog about today.
I started thinking about my teaching. I thought about the way I've approached this semester after the dog attack. I thought about my friends who are going through some difficult situations recently. I thought about my kids and the ways that they play together, wondering if it's healthy or not. I relished the fact that I ignored Monday Night Football for the first time in many years (see yesterday's post). I thought about my experience being around a dog earlier in the day. I didn't freak out, but I also wasn't comfortable. However, no matter what I thought about, I started trying to write the blog in my head rather than truly thinking about the issues.
"It's been a really hard year teaching, but I think I've finally gotten my feet under me, literally and figuratively..."
"Wallowing in self-pity won't help me or my friends, especially since my dog attack was a temporary setback, while my friends are dealing with incredibly emotional, long-term issues..."
"Justin and I fought a lot more than my two kids, but am I doing everything I can to make sure that they have the best relationship possible?..."
"In light of this morning's blog post, I decided to watch a documentary called 'A Band Called Death' instead of watching Monday Night Football. I can't say that I actually felt like I was making a difference by boycotting a corrupt institution, but the first half of the documentary (the amount I could watch before needing to go to sleep) was really good..."
"Before I knew it, my three-year-old and I had converged on our Neighbor and her dog, Zoe. I wanted to turn around, but I knew my son's desire to go to the park was greater than my fear..."
Instead of thinking these things through in my normal manner, I started composing. Typing mentally. This is a normal procedure for me when thinking about a piece of writing. However, it also seemed to me that I was bastardizing some sort of "realness" involved in my usual nightly thinking. I ended up not really processing anything from the day and not really thinking deeply about anything that I found pressing. I was just thinking about which topic I wanted to write a blog about. This reeked of inauthentic thinking and I fell asleep before I could resolve my feelings of inadequate authenticity. But maybe this could give me some insight into my writing process itself. Maybe. But I'll need to think about it more. Maybe tonight?
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